


Ground of Your Own Choosing

by Mynameisdoubleg



Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior, Classic Battletech (Tabletop RPG)
Genre: Thunder Rift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29860101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mynameisdoubleg/pseuds/Mynameisdoubleg
Summary: Some of the glory-seeking graduates from the class of 3050 are convinced they were born at precisely the wrong time -- too young for the last war, probably too old for the next, doomed to a life of mediocrity. That is, unless a war could be manufactured, sooner rather than later?





	Ground of Your Own Choosing

_Thunder Rift_

_Trell I_

_Federated Commonwealth_

_10 January, 3050_

The Davion Leftenant wouldn’t shut up the whole way out to Thunder Rift. He sat with his face pressed against the window, filling the hover bus with his inane chatter. Golly look at that, gosh isn’t that neat, wow that’s amazing, unbelievable, unimaginable, incredible—just an endless, nonstop, stream-of-consciousness rattle of theatrical incomprehension. Typical Fed Suns really, thinking with their mouths instead of their brains. The rest of the new recruits looked sidelong at one another, shook their heads or raised their eyebrows and mock-grimaced at each fresh outburst of incredulity and amazement.

So much for the benefits of military exchanges between the two allies, Leftenant Hugh Lamprey though sourly. He tried to shut out the constant yammering and focus on the view. The bus had left the sprawling, dusty plains behind, with their clumps of scruffy cobalt-blue vegetation and orderly rows of sun-silvered agrodomes, and it was now climbing into the foothills of the Crysander Mountains, zig-zagging up the switchback trail, heading for the V-notch of Thunder Rift and its famous battlefield. Its presence was the one and probably only upside to being posted on this dry, dusty backwater with its endless nights, insular locals and ugly cities. Out the windows the other side, Hugh could make out Sarghad City near the horizon, turned by the distance into a black smudge like a squashed spider, a dark round center from which a web of thin lines of habitation radiated.

What he would have given to be assigned to a front-line unit!

There were nearly a score of new personnel in the bus, most fresh from academies and technical schools across the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth, all newly-assigned to Trell I and its garrison regiment, the 12th Donegal Guards. All the new personnel, that was, with one notable and unique exception. Well, you couldn’t expect Victor Steiner-Davion, the crown prince of the united realm and newly-minted Kommandant to come along on a frivolous ride like this.

As part of their orientation, Kommandant August Bishop—seated up front behind the driver, visible only as a rectangular block of gel-slick black hair and broad shoulders—was taking them up to tour the battlefield, to see where Lyran-born MechWarrior Grayson Death Carlyle had made a name for himself beating back a sneak attack by Duke Hassid Ricol, the Red Duke, one of the Draconis Combine’s most feared and cunning MechWarriors. The tour should have been a moment of triumph, spurring feelings of tremendous pride in the Lyran Commonwealth and the bravery of its soldiers (never mind that Carlyle and the Gray Death Legion, his newly-formed unit, had promptly turned mercenary and signed on with the Free Worlds League), but the mood was being ruined by this perpetually stunned-shocked-and-amazed Davion Leftenant seated across the aisle from him.

“Just think guys,” the Leftenant was saying, “this is where history was made! The two of them, side by side, holding off the Red Duke, Grayson Carlyle and whatshername, Laura Carmen.”

Hugh couldn’t fight back a sudden spurt of laugher. He wiped flecks of spittle from the window with the cuff of his uniform.

“Who?” asked Leah Ocean, one of the new Techs, voice laden with who-is-this-idiot incredulity.

“What, Leah, don’t you know who Laura Carmen is? Tsk,” said Leftenant Sheena King sarcastically. “Laura Carmen and her commander, the famous MechWarrior Gary Caramel.”

“The guy who fought off Hashed-brown Recall,” added Slade Boggs, a Sergeant in the security company, a big man with a head of rust-colored hair and a truly massive beard. “The Rad Dude.”

“Leader of the Gray Breath Legion.”

“The Gray Dress Legion!”

The whole bus was laughing now. Hugh could see even the Kommandant’s shoulders were gently shaking. Hugh was laughing too, then caught the look of surprise and hurt on the Leftenant’s face. What was his name? Cliff or Clough or something. Hugh wiped away the smile, suddenly uncomfortable, and leaned across the aisle of the bus. “Lori Kalmar,” he said to the Leftenant quietly. “Her name was Lori Kalmar.”

The Leftenant shrugged the comment off with a what-do-I-care look, turned away to face the window, ignoring the barrage of jibes, staring glumly outside.

Hugh sighed. Well, at least the guy was quiet for the rest of the trip.

Close. That was his name. Leftenant Hunter Close.

The mountain road faded into the scree of the mountain slope and the hover bus sighed to a stop, settling on its skirts and opening the side doors with a hiss. The soldiers piled out, some arching their backs and stretching their arms after the long bus ride, some posing for holos with one another, others shielding their eyes against the ruddy light and admiring the boulder-strewn field that lay before them. In the rift above, the thick glaciers of ice were beginning to melt, and they could feel the ground shiver, hear the distant rumble of the meltwater cascading into the rift, like the pounding of distant drums. Like an army of BattleMechs approaching.

Hugh was one of the last to leave the bus, jumping lightly down from the last step, and was surprised to see the Kommandant waiting for him by the door. The rest of the group was wandering across the field, save for Leftenant Close, who stood alone, arms folded across his chest, kicking idly at the dirt.

The Kommandant was a tall man with a faintly regal air, every seam on his uniform ruler-straight and blade-sharp, each strand of hair laid down with almost mathematical precision. He was not a warm man, and the smile on his face seemed to sit there slightly uncomfortably, as though wishing it were somewhere else. “Leutnant Lamprey, isn’t it?” Bishop asked.

“Yes sir,” Hugh smiled, pleased to be remembered. A Kommandant commanded a battalion, and his favor might ease Hugh’s own ascent up the ranks. He noted the Kommandant’s deliberate use of the old Lyran word for his rank, Leutnant, rather than the newly-adopted Federated Suns term Leftenant.

“Graf von Wytheville’s son.” Bishop clapped Hugh on the shoulder. “Your father was a Hauptmann in the 24th Lyran Guards wasn’t he, and helped to stop Wolf’s Dragoons dead on Hesperus II. Good man. I am glad to have his son in the regiment.” He waved a hand towards the rough, tumbled landscape before them, stretching up and up and up to the distant cleft of the Rift. “Well, what do you make of it?”

Hugh sensed this might be a test. He breathed in to steady himself, took a moment to turn in a circle before replying, noting the gradient of the slope, the natural cover, thinking about ambient temperature and how that would affect BattleMech battle performance. “A brilliant move by Carlyle, forcing the enemy to come to him and fight on ground of his choosing. The terrain obviously favors the defenders—”

“No, no, do not give me a lecture,” Bishop interrupted. He jabbed two fingers into Hugh’s chest, over the heart. “Here. Tell me what this says to you here, Leutnant.”

Hugh replied without thinking: “I wish I’d been here, sir.”

Bishop grinned, almost naturally this time. “Don’t we all?” He began to walk up the slope, waving for Hugh to follow. Great boulders towered over them, and the ground crunched rhythmically beneath their feet. “Combat is exhilarating, is it not? There is no other feeling quite like being shot at. Well, shot at and missed, that is. Not quite so nice when they hit.”

Hugh relaxed a little, knowing somehow he’d managed to say the right thing. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the desperate battle playing out around him. “Three, what, four ’Mechs, with green MechWarriors, against two entire companies of Snakes? Ducking in and out of cover, making every shot count, Unity, it must’ve been a hell of a fight, sir!”

Bishop pointed to a four-meter high boulder a little further up the slope. “You can still see the marks of the laser fire.” Sure enough, there was a long, horizontal line of carbon scored into the rock face. “Look around on the ground and I am sure you will find armor shards, shell casings. Take yourself home a souvenir, Leutnant, and remember this place forever. This field of destiny. This arena of glory.”

Hugh started to crouch down, then checked himself, straightened. “If it’s all the same to you sir, I’d rather make my own souvenir, when we take on the Dracs ourselves.”

Bishop’s smile faded. He looked towards the other members of the group, where they posed and shuffled vaguely among the rocks, squinted at where Leftenant Close stood, then took a step closer to Hugh, his voice dropping. “Tell me, Leutnant,” he said, “what do you make of Prince Victor Steiner-Davion being posted to our unit?”

The Kommandant’s behavior, and the deliberately neutral tone of the question, made Hugh cautious again. Another test. “A great honor for the unit, I suppose,” he said after thought. “All the more chance to show our mettle and be noticed by the—”

Bishop huffed in scorn and shook his head sharply. “What it means, Leutnant, is that Hanse Davion is delaying the war against the Combine, and leaving it for his son to finish. ‘When we take on the Dracs ourselves’? When is that going to be, Leutnant? Victor being here means there won’t be any invasion of the Combine this year, or next, or the year after, maybe not for a decade or more.”

“We’ll have peace then, sir? That’s good, isn’t it?” Hugh said lamely, trying to hide his disappointment.

“Peace! Fagh, yes. Peace.” Bishop spat on the ground. “How old do you think I am, Leutnant? No, don’t guess, I’ll tell you. Forty-three. Commissioned right after the end of the Fourth Succession War. My only real experience so far was in the War of ’39, and what a disaster that was. No glory there. How old am I going to be when his hyphenated Lordship is finally ready to deal with Kurita. Fifty? Sixty? Am I going to fight the Snakes from a wheelchair or hospital bed? Our lives are slipping away, Leutnant, and with them our chance to win glory. Carlyle made his name and reputation here. Right here, on the ground beneath our feet. How are you or I supposed to do the same, sitting and waiting for the training wheels to come off Prince Victor’s BattleMech? What glory is there in sitting behind a desk or conducting training maneuvers? Who is going to remember the names of MechWarriors who fought nothing more frightening than boredom? I am sorry to say that although your father was a hero, Leutnant, his son will be nothing.”

Hugh’s shoulders sagged. The grand battlefield that had so inspired him a moment ago now seemed to mock him. Here was the fame and glory he would never know. Stuck in a nowhere unit on a nowhere planet, nurse-maiding the Prince until he was ready to ride off and win fame for himself, leaving them in the dust behind him. What would his father, hero of Hesperus II, say? The Lamprey family owed its position and prestige to its feats of arms, just as Grayson Carlyle’s ancestor Grayson Thomas had won a lordship on the field of Lysander, just as Carlyle himself had founded a regiment here at Thunder Rift. Would the Lamprey family’s military tradition die out with him?

“That seems...” he bit down on a sharper comment. “Well, seems like a wasted opportunity, sir. Surely the longer we wait, the more time the Combine has to prepare, sir.”

Bishop nodded distractedly. “And in the meantime, our Lyran heritage slips further and further away,” he said. “Make no mistake, we’re the junior partner in this alliance. We do things the Federated way, we say things the Federated way, _Leftenant_ ,” he nearly spat the word, “we fight the Federated way, our government runs the Federated way. And what is the Federated way? Glory for the Federated Suns, for Davion and Allard and Hasek-Davion. For the Commonwealth? Nothing.”

Hugh shrugged helplessly. “Hanse and Melissa Steiner-Davion are our liege lords, sir. We can’t attack the Combine until they give the word.”

“Ah, now, I was hoping you would say that.” The smile crept back across the Kommandant’s features, cold and calculating, a slow and secret thing only for the two of them. “The presence of the crown prince gives us a unique opportunity. Suppose, Leutnant, there was a way to make them give the word?”

“Make them, sir? How?”

Bishop winked and placed a finger against his lips. “Not yet, Leutnant Lamprey. We must deal with the first things first. Like our friend, Leftenant Close.”

Hugh glanced around, saw the Leftenant and the others were starting to drift back towards the bus, their exploration of the battlefield complete. “What about him?”

“Don’t let the clown-act fool you, he’s almost certainly military intelligence, sent to shield and protect the crown prince and spy on his comrades. Spy on us. We can do nothing under his eye. Perhaps though, if Leftenant Close were to suddenly ... not be around, you and I might have more to discuss. About your future, and mine, and the war we need to have with the Combine.”

_Crysander Mountains_

_Trell I_

_Federated Commonwealth_

_2 February, 3050_

Hugh slowed his 45-ton _Hatchetman_ , brought it to a stop at the crest of the ridge, and wondered if he was really going to go through with this.

All around his BattleMech, the badlands bubbled and hissed like a witches’ cauldron. Muddy pools fumed sulphurously, cloaking the valley in a thick, rotten-egg scented mist. At the bottom of the ridge, the black carbon crust over a lava field cracked, and a slug of livid red lava oozed forward, adding yet more steam to the air. Trell I was not tectonically active, but tidal flexing due to the planet’s proximity to the system’s bloated red dwarf star heated the interior, twisting and shaping the crust into the Crysander Mountains and its chain of equatorial volcanoes. The heat was punishing, even inside the insulated cockpit.

Leftenant Close’s lance was out there, somewhere in the valley. This was a training exercise—the BattleMechs’ weapons powered down, their ammunition replaced with blanks, onboard computers programmed to freeze or deactivate systems when they detected a ‘hit’—but Hugh did not think for a moment that pitting his lance against Close’s was a coincidence. Here was the chance the Kommandant had spoken of. Did he dare take it?

They were all effectively unarmed out here, except, well. Hugh glanced down at his ’Mech’s right arm, where the haft of the short, heavy-bladed axe that gave the _Hatchetman_ its name nestled. Not quite unarmed. Which was—if he were to—if he was going to do what Kommandant Bishop had so heavily hinted at. To a fellow soldier. Or, well. To a foreigner, a spy, a loudmouthed mannerless interloper, to a man who stood between Hugh and his dream of winning a name for himself.

He ordered his lance to spread out. No sense in leaving witnesses. He pushed the throttle forward, the _Hatchetman_ stalking like a wolf through the swirling, stinking mist, hunting for its prey.

Hugh spotted Close’s _Wolfhound_ skirting the edge of a lava field. As luck would have it, he was alone, too. Not that this would be an easy task: Despite being 10 tons lighter than the _Hatchetman_ and lacking any jump jets, the _Wolfhound_ had a number of advantages. It was faster and carried more close-range weaponry, though both could be negated in the hot and rough terrain.

Hugh bounded his BattleMech forward over the broken terrain, eager to get the drop on his opponent, but Close was already reacting, twisting towards his approach, right arm up. The thin, pale beam of a simulated laser sliced the air beneath the _Hatchetman_ ’s feet. It wouldn’t have done any real damage, but even a simulated hit would freeze Hugh’s BattleMech and prevent him from, ah, doing what he had to do.

Hugh set the ’Mech down, fired the lasers (simulated) and autocannon (blanks) and immediately hit the jets again, leaping back as Close charged forward, trying to bring his greater volume of laser fire to bear. Hugh landed behind a pillar of stone, watched its edge glow as Close’s lasers harmlessly heated the rocks, then jetted sideways, firing his own weapons again.

They clashed, broke apart, came together again, illuminating the mist in green and red and gold. The battle computer faithfully kept tally of each hit with an armor schematic, color-coding each section from green to yellow and then red as the damage accumulated. Hugh was sweating in earnest now. No matter how many hits he landed, he couldn’t immobilize or cripple the _Wolfhound_ , and time was running out. Another MechWarrior would come, or the time on the simulation would run out, and he would lose his chance.

He pressed harder. Jump forward. Twist right. Fire, fire. Leap away again. His left arm was no longer responding, the battle computer ruling the shoulder joint destroyed. No choice—press harder. He vaulted the _Hatchetman_ over a ridge, trying to catch Close from behind.

The _Wolfhound_ was gone.

Hugh frantically searched the sensors. No, Close couldn’t have escaped, no, not when he was so close, where, where was he—there! Not vanished. Pulling back. Close’s ’Mech must be in even worse state than Hugh’s. Time to end this. Hugh fired his one remaining laser and jumped in pursuit, trying to keep between Close and the broken ground to his flank, keeping him hemmed in against the lava field.

He found Close’s BattleMech at the tip of an isthmus of solid ground, a tongue of land surrounded on three sides by a lava field. If his ’Mech had been equipped with jump jets, it would have been a simple matter to vault over the field and escape, but the _Wolfhound_ was tied to the ground, and trapped.

The _Wolfhound_ had its back to him. One blow from the hatchet, there, between the shoulders, would send it off-balance, tip it face-forward into the lava flow. No chance to eject, no weapons signature, no ammunition used, no trace but a faint after-image left in the surface.

“Is this where you’re going to do it?”

Hugh froze. So, the man had realized what was coming. That was no reason to babble, however. Close could be recording or transmitting their conversation. “Please be careful. You are standing too close to the lava field, Leftenant Close,” Hugh said, recovering his poise.

“I figured Bishop got to you. You’re the logical choice for him, both aristos, both from traditional families. Will you at least hear me out first?”

“Allow me to assist you to move away from the danger,” Hugh said, moving the _Hatchetman_ slowly closer, within striking distance.

“We knew Bishop was a risk, that’s why I was assigned to his battalion. If anything happens to me, FCIS is going to know he did it. You don’t have to go down with him, Leftenant. You can still save yourself and your family’s honor.”

Hugh’s hand rested on the arm actuator controls. A small betrayal was forgivable, surely, out of loyalty to something greater. All life was a negotiation of priorities, picking and choosing among conflicting claims on your soul. It was not a game Hugh had designed, so really, who could fault him from trying to play it well? A small betrayal, and it would be done.

After, Hugh clicked open a communications channel to the 12th Donegal Guards headquarters. “Clover Base, this is Flanker One. There’s been a terrible accident.”

_The Castle_

_Mount Gayal, Trell I_

_Federated Commonwealth_

_2 February, 3050_

Eight BattleMechs had marched from the Castle at the start of the exercise, but only seven came back. They came marching back across the broad sweep of ferrocrete at the foot of the Castle, past the vehicle park with its ranks of hover and tracked weapons carriers, past the regiment’s collection of Kurita-painted rattletrap BattleMechs they used for target practice. The great steel doors to the ’Mech Bay ground slowly open, revealing a crowd of somber, serious-faced techs, astechs and other personnel, looking up at the returning MechWarriors in sadness, in concern, in reproach.

Hugh ignored them all and strode his machine to its cradle, powered down and cracked open the cockpit hatch. Leah Ocean was the Tech who took his neurohelmet when he stepped from the cockpit. Others pushed past her, already attaching cables to the BattleMech’s event data recorder. “Heard what happened, sir,” Leah said somberly, and gave Hugh a lightning-fast wink. “Don’t worry about a thing—we got you covered. Now, Kommandant Bishop wants to see you, A-very-SAP.”

Hugh paused outside the Kommandant’s office. Two men from the security company were on duty, armed with Gunther submachineguns. One of them the new red-headed Sergeant, Slade Boggs. Slade nodded to Hugh and patted him on the shoulder. “You can go right in, Leftenant,” he said, and pushed the door open.

Hugh stood before Kommandant Bishop’s desk, saluted, and waited. Bishop took his time, watching something on a screen in front of him, not looking up. Finally, Bishop clicked it off, sat back in his chair and acknowledged Hugh.

“I have reviewed the data Technician Ocean and her team downloaded from your BattleMech’s event recorder, Leftenant Lamprey.” Bishop reached forward to the screen, and turned it around to face towards Hugh. On the screen, the _Wolfhound_ stood pinned against the edge of the lava field. Then there was static, a blurred image, cyan, magenta and yellow chasing each other across the screen in spasmodic, trembling lines. When they cleared, the _Wolfhound_ was gone, and something had crashed through the crust of the lava and disappeared in a molten-glass spray of orange, yellow and red.

Bishop stopped the playback again.

“This is ... such a tragedy. But being a MechWarrior is a dangerous profession, is it not?” Bishop tented his fingers, a look of grave concentration upon his face. “We all know the risks involved even in conducting a simple training exercise. I am sure you are quite blameless in this terrible incident, Leftenant Lamprey, but we will, of course, have to launch a formal investigation.” He smiled thinly. “Leftenant General Hawksworth will want to interview you. You are confined to quarters until further notice. Dismissed.”

“Of course, sir. I understand.” Hugh saluted sharply, turned as if to go, then faced Bishop again. “I have just one request, sir.”

“Oh?”

“Deal me in.”

Bishop glanced towards the doorway, and the guards outside, and tried to smile, a little uncertainly. “I am not sure I know what you are referring to, Leftenant.”

“I want in. I did what you asked. I got the spy out of your hair. You’re not gonna hang me out to dry now. If I end up in an interrogation room, the first name I’m going to give them is yours. Close said you were under investigation, so it won’t take much to convince them this was your idea.”

Bishop was no longer smiling. “Your father would be disappointed.” He separated his hands, and placed them flat on his desk. “Do you think they will trust the word of a murderer? This is a dangerous game you are playing, Leftenant.”

“Then no more games, Kommandant. All I want is to be in on the plan, sir. What’s the next step? How do we start a war with the Combine?”

Bishop cocked his head and gave Hugh a long, thoughtful look, eyes narrowed, as though he might peer inside of him. He nodded slowly. “In April, the regiment will hold a field exercise with the Red Brigade, as part of Kommandant Steiner-Davion’s training in battalion operations,” he said finally. “There will be much confusion, with many unknown BattleMechs moving around on the field. A Draconis Combine strike force will take this opportunity to make an attempt on the life of the crown prince.”

Hugh nodded. “A false flag operation?”

“Naturally. Hanse and Melissa will feel they have no choice but to retaliate. The full might of the Commonwealth and our Federated allies will fall on the Combine.” Bishop clenched his hands into fists. “We will end this useless peace and have war with the Snakes, not at some vague point in the future when it might not do either of us any good, but within months.”

“Where will you get the ’Mechs for this strike team? Who will lead?”

“The BattleMechs will come from our captured, target-practice machines. A few are still capable of movement and combat, and that is enough. Only a highly-visible attempt is required, we do not need to actually kill or even harm Victor. Leutnant Sheena King will lead. Unless you want the position yourself?”

Hugh took a step forward, so that his knees almost brushed the edge of the desk. “What I want, Kommandant ...” he leaned forward over the desk, until he was eye to eye with Bishop, their faces barely a handbreadth apart. “... is to place you under arrest for treason.”

Slade and his companion pushed open the door and marched in, their Gunther MP-20 submachineguns at the ready. Bishop froze, eyes bulging in incredulity, spluttering, spitting, trying to find the words for Hugh’s betrayal. “You madman,” he gasped. “You are part of this, too. Arrest him, Sergeant. He murdered Leftenant Close.”

Slade took one armpit, his companion the other, and they forced the Kommandant up and out of his chair. The shock on Bishop’s face turned to horror as Leftenant General Hawksworth entered, along with a gaggle of officers, including both Technician Leah Ocean and a very much alive and breathing Leftenant Hunter Close.

“But ... but...,” Bishop howled as he was dragged away. “How ... I saw ... I saw it ...”

“Thanks to Technician Ocean, you saw exactly what we wanted you to see,” said Close, nodding in her direction. “Don’t worry sir, we’ll root these traitors out,” he said to the Leftenant General.

“Sir, Leftenant Sheena King is also part of it,” Hugh told Hawksworth . “Her and three others. Might want to send somebody to pick them up, too.”

“Hmph. Unorthodox methods, Leftenants,” grumbled Hawksworth to Hugh and Hunter. “That goes for both of you. Next time, see that I’m kept aware of FCIS’s operations in my own unit. But well done. And don’t stop here: Get to the bottom of it.”

After the Leftenant General had gone, Close and Hugh were left alone in the Kommandant’s office.

“Now, between you and me, would you really have done it?” Close asked.

“Of course not,” Hugh lied smoothly. “My loyalty to the Federated Commonwealth is absolute. It was just a matter of making it look convincing for the Kommandant.”

“To be sure,” said Close flatly, unconvinced. “There are worse reasons for loyalty than ambition, I suppose. Look at the Kell Hounds or Grayson Carlyle—he might’ve turned mercenary, but he’s proven a true friend of the realm all the same. In any event, and for whatever the reason, you have our gratitude, Leftenant Lamprey,” said Close. “Thank you, this will not be forgotten. For a moment there, I thought you really would go through with it. I think you made the right choice.”

“I know I did.”

Later, Hugh climbed up to the roof of the Castle, shaded his eyes and looked towards the distant mountains, hearing the endless pounding of the falls. It was getting hotter now as Trell I slowly lumbered on its inevitable axis, turning this hemisphere towards the sun. The wind was picking up, and fierce storms would be brewing out there, across the Nerge Desert, driven by the sudden and violent change in temperatures. Hugh wasn’t worried. He’d be ready.

He _had_ thought about killing Close, in truth. But Close had been right, there were other ways to advance his family’s name, and if that didn’t work, well, there would always be more fighting, somewhere, sometime. Kommandant August Bishop might have been in a hurry, but Hugh could afford to wait. There was still fame and glory to be won on the battlefield, honor to be won for House Lamprey. Like the distant roar of the falls in Thunder Rift, the war was still coming, of that he was sure. The power, prestige and reputation of every major family in the Federated Commonwealth depended on it, and made it a certainty. And now, when it came he would be better positioned to take advantage of it.

The story of Grayson Carlyle wasn’t about bravery or glory or loyalty. Oh no. You fought on ground of your own choosing. That was what the story of Grayson Carlyle had taught him.

Hugh looked towards the Rift, then let his eyes drift up, towards the stars fading from Trell I’s brightening sky. He listened. And waited.


End file.
